White Jalapeños

Me and the boys’re drinkin beer on the soft-splintered boards of Craig’s sunken porch.  The fat moon’s floatin overhead in a dark pool of summer sky, and silvery cloud ribbons are swimmin past it.  Their shadows are swishin through the tall, windblown grass ahead.  The billowin blades seem to stretch forever across the landscape, which is empty ‘cept for the silhouettes of a few loomin wind turbines.

Tonight’s the first time we’ve all seen each other in a few years now.  We grew up in Laredo and then started ‘bout ten years back at the University of Oklahoma, but none of us made it through.  Ben moved back to a little town outside of Laredo after droppin out and has come to visit Craig for a few days.  Craig was all set to get hitched to his sweetie from Norman, but ended up callin it off a little after he found this run-down shack on this enormous plot of land here in Thomas, just a few hours away.  I’ve mostly been shufflin along with my dad, settlin down for a few months at a time wherever there’s work.  Tonight, we’ve ended up in Thomas on our way to Colorado.

I gotta piss somethin fierce, but the stories these boys’re shootin around are killin me.  I don’t wanna miss ‘em.

“Ever since I moved out, my ma just keeps buyin dogs,” Craig says. He’s got one leg up on the banister, his knee pulled up to his chest.  His other foot’s planted on his porch. “She’s got at least fifteen of ‘em—dachshunds, dalmations, labs, poodles.  Last time I visited, I was takin a shower, hummin a tune real loud.  I turned ‘round to grab the shampoo and nearly slipped and broke my neck when I saw three of those pups with their heads poked ‘round the edge of the curtain.”  He runs his hand through his thick brown hair.  “I threw it back and yelled my lungs bloody, but they just kept starin.”

I imagine a naked Craig, his bony body slick with soap and water, lecturin an attentive audience of hounds—pink tongues hangin out, marble eyes wide, tails waggin—and I start howlin.

“Well what’d ya yell at ‘em for?”  Ben asks, sittin up for the first time in hours.  His pudgy red face is twisted into a look of worry.  “They’re just pups.”

“I wanted to know what in the hell they were doin peekin in on a man’s shower,” Craig says.  He starts tappin his foot on the porch nervously.  “I can’t get a moment’s peace in that house.  It’s been converted into a regular dog motel.”

“What’s your pa think of all those additions to the family?” I ask between bouts of laughter.

“The old man ain’t around no more,” Craig tells me.  Our eyes lock, then he takes a swig from the slender silver can in his hand.  He turns his head to look out at the shadows.

That, of course, gets Ben started on his old man.

“Every three weeks the damn fool calls me up,” Ben says, eyes concentrated on the beer can he’s slowly spinnin between his thick fingers.  “He tells me the garage door’s busted and asks me to come out and help him and his neighbor repair the motor. I fight it, but I always end up makin the three hour drive out to Laredo.  You’d think they’d learnt to fly, the way they whoop and holler when they get that piece of junk stutterin up and down.  But I always know it’s gonna break down again.”  He stops spinnin the can, then takes a swig from it.  He shakes his head in long, sweepin strokes.  “There ain’t even anythin special in that garage. Just Dad’s rusty, pukewater colored pickup.”

Craig mutters something.  His head’s still turned to the shadows.

“I ain’t been on a proper date in months cause every third Saturday I’m out there foolin with that door,” Ben says.  He flicks a rock across the porch and I listen to its hollow skitter.

“Every third Saturday leaves you an abundance of free ones,” I remind him.

“Yeah,” he says, then pauses. “But those ain’t never the ones I got dates lined up for.”

We go quiet for a moment.

“You boys remember Wesley White?”  I ask.  They nod.  “There’s a crazy family.”

Ben stretches out and lays back down on the stringy wooden planks of the porch.  He rests the can of beer between his grizzly hands upright on his wide belly.  He starts laughin and it starts bobbin.  I sit there with a stupid smile on my face, my eyes wildly trying to follow it up and down.

“His dad, ol’ Rayford… that man had a temper,” Ben says.  “’Member when we all went huntin and he couldn’t get a shot off on that buck?  ‘I’m so mad I could eat blood!’ he kept yellin.  If I weren’t so frightened I believe I woulda pissed my pants in laughter.”

“You pissed your pants anyhow,” I say, wipin a tear from my eye.

“Well, it was a damn fearful sight,” Ben says.

“The man certainly had a penchant for tradition,” Craig says, turning his head back to the conversation. “Remember when we all quit football after talkin ‘bout it bein our senior year?  About how the thought of not havin any free time depressed us?  Rayford said to Wesley, ‘Well, boy, football’s depressin, but it’s life.  I played it and your grandpappy played it, and believe me, it’s made a melancholy man outta finer folk than us.  There ain’t been a happy man in the history of this family, and you ain’t gonna go changin things now.’”

“Then there was that deal with him and jalapeños,” I say.

“Jalapeños?” Craig asks.

“Yeah,” I say.  “Remember that story I told you, ‘bout the burgers?”

“I ain’t never heard that one,” Ben says.

“Don’t believe I have either,” Craig says.

“Oh, come on, sure you have,” I say.  “When ol’ Wes went out to pick up lunch for him and his old man.”

“Nope,” Craig says.  Ben shakes his head.

“Oh, boy,” I say.  “We were in about the 10th grade, and Wes had just gotten his license.  It was one of them unbearable summer days we used to have back in Laredo.  Every AC unit in town was busted, so Wes and me were just sittin on that dingy tan couch in his family room, feelin too hot to do much of anything.

“’Course ol’ Rayford starts orderin Wes around, and he tells us to go pick up some lunch at Griff’s burger, but for once he gives us a little cash to get somethin for ourselves.  He tells us he wants a triple Griffburger with onions and three helpins of jalapeños.  We drive out to Griff’s in Wes’s truck and order.  I scarf my burger down on the ride back, but Wes hasn’t touched his when we get home.  He sets the burgers down, yells to Rayford that he’s back, then heads to the crapper.  I’m sitting there on the couch feelin’ doubly miserable, what with the heat and a greasy Griff’s sittin like a sack of horseshoes in my gut, when Rayford walks into the room.

“‘You eaten already, son?’ he asks me.   ‘Yessir,’ I tell him, and he grins and nods.  He lifts the bun of each of the two remainin burgers to see what’s on ‘em, then takes one and sets down in his recliner on the other side of the room. He begins eatin real slow.

“Couple minutes later Wes walks back into the room, grabs the last burger, and falls back on the couch.   I’m still sprawled out on my end, but I see him unwrap his burger and take a big ol’ bite out of it.  His chewing slows, then his face twists up in disgust.  He looks like he’s about to spit his bite out, when Rayford rushes across the room, scarin the livin shit out of me.  He slams one hand on top of ol’ Wes’s head and one hand under his chin.

“‘Now you listen here, boy,’ Rayford says to Wes, keepin Wes’s head firmly between his hands.  ‘I been tryin for 16 years to get you to eat a jalapena pepper, and ever since you was a baby you wouldn’t so much as open your mouth for one.’  Wes looks scared out of his mind.  His arms and legs are flailin and he’s layin some pretty good hits on Rayford, but Rayford don’t seem a bit phased.  ‘I knew that one day an opportunity would present itself, and I knew that when it did, I’d grab it,’ he says.

“Wes’s flailin stops after a bit, and he’s just breathin real deep.  I watch his chest shudder up and down.  He tries to talk but his mouth is full and Rayford doesn’t let up.  I see a tear well up in Wes’s eye, then leave a trail of wetness on his cheek as it scurries downward.

“‘Now you listen, boy,’ Rayford says.  ‘We White’s are mighty fond of the jalapena pepper.  You’re the last male in my family line, and I ain’t gonna let tradition die with you.  Now chew.’  I watch as Rayford’s hands let up a little bit, then Wes’s mouth starts to move.  More and more tears race down his face, then his Adam’s apple bulges as he swallows.

“‘There ya go, boy,’ Rayford says softly.  ‘Now when I let go, are you gonna finish that burger without any assistance?’  Wes wiggles his head between Rayford’s grip, then Rayford retreats back to his recliner.  I stay frozen as Wes eats the rest of the burger bite by bite, cryin in broken, choky sobs the whole time.

“And that’s about how it happened,” I say.  I take a swig from my beer.

“Goddamn,” Craig says softly.  He’s facin inward now, sittin straight up on the banister with both feet planted on the porch.  Ben’s sittin up again as well, holdin his knees to his chest.  His beer’s by his side.  Neither says anything for about a minute.

“Yeah, well, like you boys said, weird fella, that Rayford,” I say.

We all stare blankly in different directions and our conversation is replaced by the soft swish of the wind through the grass.

“Well if you’ll excuse me, I been meanin to relieve myself for about an hour now,” I say after a couple of minutes.  I get up and weave my way through the tall blades of yellowin grass ‘til I find a patch of dirt and start makin water.  I hear Ben yell somethin about the sound of a cow pissin on flat rock, then his shrill giggle echoes out over the plain ahead of me.

I smile a little, but as I’m zippin up, I notice my trail of wetness, speckled with shimmers of glittery moonlight, flowin in a thin stream over the cracked earth. As it trickles toward the grassline ahead, I catch sight of the bleached, brittle bones of a squirrel half-buried in the dirt.  Its cheekbones look soft and thin as a sheet of paper and its spine is separated down the middle, probably from where a hawk snatched it.  I watch the sparkly stream move through the rift in the fragile thing’s frame. I feel a heavy weight in my chest.

When I get back to the porch, Craig’s cussin about his dad and how heartbroken the old man left his mother.  I ask him if he’s heard from his old sweetie, but he pretends not to hear me.  Ben says he’s gotta fly back into Laredo in a couple days.  Says he’s sure that garage door’s ’bout ready for another round of repairs.  I ask him whether he’d rather do that or go out with a lady friend, but he doesn’t seem to hear me either.

I suddenly don’t wanna be here anymore, but I shudder when I think ‘bout gettin up in a few hours.  Me and Dad are headin for Colorado at 7.